King James Version · The Persian return
Ezra 9
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Now when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the , have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their , even of , the , the , the , , the , the , and the . For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the have mingled themselves with the people of those lands: yea, the hand of the princes and hath been chief in this trespass. And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonied. Then were assembled unto me every one that trembled at the words of the of Israel, because of the of those that had been ; and I sat astonied . And at the evening I arose up from my heaviness; and having rent my garment and my mantle, I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto my , And said, O my , I am and blush to lift up to thee, my : for our are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto . Since the days of our fathers have we been in a great trespass unto this day; and for our have we, our kings, and our priests, been into the hand of the kings of the lands, to , to , and to a spoil, and to confusion of , as it is this day. And now for a little space hath been shewed from our , to leave us a to escape, and to give us a nail in his place, that our may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage. For we were bondmen; yet our hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of , to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our , and to repair the desolations thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and in . And now, O our , what shall we say after this? for we have forsaken thy , Which thou hast commanded by thy servants , saying, The land, unto which ye go to possess it, is an land with the filthiness of the people of the lands, with their , which have filled it from one end to another with their uncleanness. Now therefore give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor seek their peace or their wealth for ever: that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an to your children for ever. And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, seeing that thou our hast punished us less than our deserve, and hast given us such as this; Should we again break thy , and join in affinity with the people of these ? wouldest not thou be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us, so that there should be no nor escaping? O of Israel, thou art : for we yet escaped, as it is this day: behold, we are before thee in our trespasses: for we cannot stand before thee because of this.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · The Persian return, 539 BC to 332 BC ›
Persia takes Babylon and reverses its policy, sending exiled peoples home to rebuild their temples. Judah returns as a small province, rebuilding under imperial permission rather than independence.
- Persia
- The largest empire the world had yet seen, from the Indus to the Aegean, run through provinces, a royal road, and a postal system. Its policy on conquered peoples was to send them home and fund their temples, in exchange for loyalty and prayers for the king. The Cyrus Cylinder states the policy in Cyrus's own words, and Ezra opens with the same policy applied to Judah.
- Judah
- A small, poor province called Yehud, a fraction of the old kingdom, with a rebuilt temple that made the people who remembered the first one weep. No king, and no prospect of one. Leadership passes to priests and scribes, which shapes everything afterward.
- Greece
- Persia and Greece collide at Marathon and Salamis, Persia loses, and Athens spends the following decades on the Parthenon, tragedy, and Socrates. Herodotus writes the first history in order to explain that war. Then Plato and Aristotle, whose vocabulary the church will still be using at Nicaea eight centuries later.
- Further afield
- Rome throws out its kings and becomes a republic. In India and China this is the age of the Buddha's early followers and of Confucian teaching taking hold. More of what the world still thinks with was invented in this era than in almost any other.